The present invention relates to a plastic container which can be used in particular for beverages. In the field of the beverage-producing industry, more and more plastic containers, especially for PET containers, have in recent times prevailed over glass bottles. In this, the most different basic shapes or cross-sections, respectively, of such plastic bottles are known.
The terms (plastic) container, bottle or container shall in the following be used as synonyms.
Such a plastic container generally comprises the following areas: a base, a body, a shoulder and a neck, which merges into a mouth opening.
The PET bottles initially used were usually relatively heavy and thereby also quite stable.
However, efforts have in recent years been made in the production of such containers to further reduce material consumption, thereby cutting costs. This results in the walls and the base of these containers being designed thinner and thinner.
On the other hand, it is important to make sure that the bottle wall, and especially the base of these containers is designed strong enough to withstand, firstly, a filled bottle's own weight, and secondly, also a possibly developing internal pressure, especially with carbonated beverages. Strongly ribbed designs are usually used in prior art for filling non-carbonated beverages.
Such ribs have the advantage that they provide good gripping stability, and the necessary top load can be warranted arising, for example, due to an axial load when palletizing.
However, relatively smooth-walled designs are always used for bottling carbonated beverages, as strong ribbing, when subjected to internal pressure, leads to a strong expansion in height, in that the ribs are by the pressure drawn in length in an accordion-like manner. This axial elongation leads to a destruction of the design.
Such smooth-walled containers, however, are accompanied with increased material consumption and moderate gripping stability.
In order to design the base of a container in a manner resistant to pressure at a low weight, it is known to provide tie members extending from the injection point up to the outer side of bottles. These are used to keep the injection point up, so that the bottle stands on its feet and does not start tilting.
WO 2006/067590 A1 describes such a bottle base made of plastic. More precisely, reinforcement recesses are there provided extending transversely in relation to the bottle base, where an end-to-end main rib is disposed in the base. Here, said main ribs extend up to an injection point of the container. By means of such a design of the bottle base, increased stability can be achieved, however, in particular in the area of the injection point, there might possibly be resulting unfavorable stress distribution due to the design of the respective reinforcement ribs.
DE 202008012290 U1 as well describes a base with such tie members.
Though the base section is significantly more stable due to the presence of the tie members, this measure has no effect on the stability of the bottle in the central body or shoulder section.